Memorial Service for Joe Ranft, The Heart of Pixar

Yesterday I attended Joe Ranft’s memorial service with my sweetie, who used to work at Pixar with Joe on such films as Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. Joe was always generous and kind to my sweetie and to me – and it turned out that he was that way with everyone.

When one longtime friend of Joe’s asked all the guests who considered Joe their best friend to raise their hands, half the place put their hands up. After a big heart and hilarious sense of humor, what people mentioned most was that Joe was a storyteller, and everyone loved hearing his stories.

A longtime friend of Joe’s talked about a chant they spoke out loud at the end of every meeting of his long-time men’s group that met every Monday. I didn’t get the exact words down but it went something like this:

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p class=”mobile-post”>Life is in my mind.
Life is in my body.
Life is in my heart.
I accept it just the way it is.
I accept it just the way it is not.
Thank you life.

Some people wanted to change the second to last line to “becoming” and did (I accept it just the way it is becoming) but Joe refused. He insisted on saying, “I accept it just the way it is not.” I have to admit that though I say a similar sentence daily, saying it doesn’t make believing it simpler, and it doesn’t make Joe’s death any easier to take.

Director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life) talked about how Joe always signed the drawings he gave to him with the inscription “Your pal Joe.” He said that Joe stood up for you. Found what was worthy about you. Saw the better artist in us. The better person you could be. You aspired to his vision of you. “Joe was the bridge that made us all pals.”

Steve Jobs who spoke after the two reverends did the introductions said that some people leave us without a trace. Others leave big holes in our hearts. But the hardest ones are the ones who don’t leave us.

Joe won’t leave us for a very, very long time, if at all. And finally, I don’t remember who said it, but I think it was John Lasseter, “We all have our inner Joe Ranft.”